What does it take to land a large-company CFO position, and how can CFOs position themselves for the top spot? Six leading executive recruiters specializing in financial officer searches share their views on the CFO job market. They highlight the importance of operational skills, leadership presence, long-term vision, industry expertise, investor-relations savviness and a global outlook as essential skills. Find out how changing market dynamics, boards’ expectations and other factors are determining which skillsets are most in demand.

Being the kind of CFO that CEOs want to help drive their vision starts with building a position of knowledge and trust with the CEO, allowing for honest and open dialogue about the company, says Charles Holley, an independent senior advisor to Deloitte. Drawing on experiences working closely with CEOs, he explains how to understand your CEO’s communication style, and describes roles and activities that can help CFOs develop a credible voice and earn their CEOs’ trust.

It’s no secret that talent is key to a CFO’s success, yet talent is a perennial top challenge for CFOs. That’s partly due to the continually changing definition of what it means to have a talented finance team, says Charles Holley, an independent senior advisor to Deloitte. Drawing on his extensive leadership experiences, he explains how to identify, recruit and develop the people best suited for the fast-changing demands of finance. The key, he says, is finding the best athletes and keeping their capabilities relevant and aligned to the needs of the business.

If the first 180 days of taking the reins as a CFO are about getting to know the company, choosing what to do and getting the right team in place, the next 12 months—and beyond—are about making a difference to the organization. A Deloitte study identified the primary transitional phases that all CFOs encounter in their first year on the job and found several notable practices that could prove helpful in deploying resources effectively to implement key initiatives.

HR technology is headed in a decisively consumer-focused direction in 2016, with features and designs aimed first and foremost at engaging employees and improving their performance rather than easing HR administration. This is good news for organizations seeking improved tools for IT workforce planning, performance management, and recruiting and retention, according to a report from Bersin by Deloitte.

CFOs of federal agencies face increased demand to optimize workforce expenditures, and difficult trade-off decisions are creating the need for better visibility into workforce costs and mission impact. CFOs can strengthen their ability to make workforce budget decisions by using advanced analytics capabilities to help develop a direct, data-driven linkage with mission requirements and outcomes. A systematic approach to supporting data-driven decisions on workforce funding begins with identifying data that can answer a federal CFO’s workforce questions.

The recent strengthening of the U.S. dollar has caused a significant impact on corporate earnings at many U.S.-based companies with significant foreign operations. The magnitude of the change also caught a lot of companies by surprise, but most decided not to make major changes to their incentive calculations. Still, questions remain about how companies should address unanticipated FX swings that affect incentive compensation. Learn more about the three schools of thought regarding adjustments to compensation and related considerations.

Fully 50% of respondents to a global survey rated their leadership shortfalls as “very important.” Yet only 6% of organizations believe their leadership pipeline is “very ready,” which points to a staggering capability gap, according to the findings of Deloitte’s 2015 “Global Human Capital Trends” survey report. Further, while nearly every company recognizes leadership as a critical talent challenge, few are making progress addressing the issue.

Decisions pertaining to people are among the hardest tasks confronting new or incoming executives. Often, new executives look back on the first year in their new roles and cite moving too slowly to resolve talent issues as their biggest regret, says Dr. Ajit Kambil, global research director for Deloitte’s CFO program. He discusses talent strategies related to reducing the time lost in trying to “rescue” key staff and the importance of knowing the critical trade-offs between individual rescue efforts and recruiting staff with the requisite skills and temperament to succeed.

Mark Buthman, SVP and CFO of Kimberly-Clark Corporation since 2003, is known for establishing the “Power of a CFO,” a mindset to motivate his finance organization of 1,600 people to offer ideas and challenge the status quo. Mr. Buthman, who expects to retire at the end of the year, discusses why it’s important to push not only his finance team but also IT, sales, marketing and others, to bring more value to themselves as well as to the company.

About Deloitte Insights

Deloitte’s Insights for CFOs provides financial executives a customized resource to help them address the strategic, operational and regulatory issues they face in managing their finance organizations and careers, with top-line digests, research, perspectives and technical analyses.

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Effective company leadership in the business environment of the digital revolution requires not just great strategic vision but also the flexibility to modify your point of view and quickly adapt company strategy to fast-shifting technologies, business conditions and consumer needs, according to Jeffrey Housenbold, veteran internet executive. Mr. Housenbold, who was CEO of Shutterfly for more than 11 years, discusses what it takes for CFOs to help CEOs drive the company vision and strategy with Kirsten Rhodes, Advisory principal, Deloitte & Touche LLP.

Technological advances, from cloud-based services to robotic process automation to artificial intelligence, are enhancing companies’ ability to improve efficiencies and anticipate trends and events that may impact the bottom line. Companies are adopting different strategies based on their desired outcomes, but there is increasing interest in harnessing these new technologies, along with plans to invest in them, according to Deloitte’s third-quarter 2016 CFO Signals™ survey of 122 CFOs from large North American companies.

The potential benefits of a flexible consumption business model, which include greater customer loyalty and more predictable revenue streams, are attracting the attention of CFOs in many industry sectors. Although not new, the pay-as-you-go business model is gaining interest as cloud and mobile computing, social networking, big data and other technological innovations make it broadly viable. Four considerations around what, to whom and how to sell and how to monetize can help organizations assess whether offering some type of flexible consumption option can fit with their strategy.